An Evaluation of Alberta's Family Law Act
| Author | Leslie D. MacRae, Shane D. Simpson, Joanne J. Paetsch, Lorne D. Bertrand, Sheryl Pearson, and Joseph P. Hornick |
| Pages | 245-266 |
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An Evaluation of Alberta’s Family Law Act
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Historica lly, fa mily law has been inherently complicated in Albert a. Not
only a re the issues dealt with sensitive, but t he processes to dea l with t hem
have also been challengi ng. Federal–provincial juri sdictional distinc tion has
meant that some issues have proceeded in t he Court of Queen’s Bench a nd
others in Provincial Court, causing much confusion and frust ration among
members of the public.
In addition to procedura l issues, a number of pieces of legisl ation ad-
dressed famil y law issues in the province, and t here were many inconsis-
tencies and much overlap among prov isions. In the early s, A lberta
Justice recognized that fami ly law reform was necessary, and the A lberta
Law Reform Institute (ALRI) was contracted to address these shortcom-
ings i n provincia l family law. ALR I worked to recommend a sound legisla-
tive framework that would “modernize, rationalize, and consolidate Alberta
famil y law.” e Family L aw Act (FLA) came into force on October
to address non-divorce ma ers in Alberta fa mily law.
e Act w as intended to improve the fa mily law s ystem in A lberta i n a
number of ways:
Michel le C. Chris topher, “Alberta’s New Fa mily Law Act ” LawNow (Jun e–July ).
Alberta L aw Reform In stitute, Fam ily Law Projec t: e Conclusi on, Final R eport No.
(Edmonton: e I nstitute , ).
Family Law Act , SA , c. F-. [FLA].
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simplif ying the law;•
improving acce ssibility for all, pa rticularly se lf-represented litigants;•
supporting non-adver sarial approaches to resolvi ng family conic t in •
the best interests of c hildren and fami lies;
supporting a lternatives to court for resolv ing issues; and•
streaml ining court procedu res so that Provincia l Court and Court of •
Queen’s Bench share the ability to hear most maers u nder the Ac t
and follow the same appl ication forms and procedures.
Substantively, the FLA a lso updated t he language of fami ly law in Alberta ,
replacing concepts of “custody” a nd “access” w ith “gua rdianship,” “parent-
ing ti me,” and “contact.” Fur ther, while t he Act addres sed many fam ily law
issues, f undamental cha nges were made in a number of spe cic substanti ve
areas, includ ing the best interests of the child, gu ardianship, custody a nd ac-
cess/parenting orders, contac t orders, child support, a nd adult interdepend-
ent relationships .
ough a number of procedura l and substant ive changes were made to
Albert a family law with the introduct ion of the FLA, it was unknow n wheth-
er these cha nges had the desired eect. With f unding from the Alberta Law
Foundation, and the suppor t of Alberta Just ice and the Alberta L aw Reform
Institute , the Canadian Resea rch Institute for Law and the Fam ily (CRILF)
conducted a two-year evaluation of the legislation in order to determine
whether the procedural and subs tantive changes introduced by the FLA
were fair, eect ive, and ecient.
A. METHOD OLOGY
e pri mary pu rpose of t his project was to e valuate the impact of the pro-
cedural and substantive changes to fam ily law in Alberta i ntroduced by the
Family Law Ac t, and inform recommendations for cha nge. To achieve t hese
ends, the project was divided i nto two phases: () a development phase, from
April to M arch , producing a deta iled evaluat ion framework t hat
Alber ta Court Ser vices, A lbe rta’s Famil y Law Act: An O verview, onl ine: ww w.alber-nline: w ww.alb er-www.alber-
tacourts.ab.ca/cs/familyjustice/FLAOverview.pdf.
L .D. MacRae et al., An Eval uation of Albe rta’s Famil y Law Act (Calgar y: Canad ian Re-
search I nstitute fo r Law and the Fam ily, ), online: h p://people.uca lgary.ca/~cr ilf/
publications/FLA_Final_Report_May_.pdf.
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